Chapter 1981: Rapid Expansion - Part 5
A story in his head, a distraction, a hint of magic that ought not be there. That childishness, that distance, making it something other than what it was. A strange thrill that he hadn’t had in the shortest little while.
An open window in the corridor allowed the cold wind of the outside world in. A small patch of snow made its way onto the tiles, along with some pine needles. A different voice in the drama. A sense of reverence in Oliver’s fingers as he closed it. Once more, childishly. Thinking as deeply as he could, without really thinking at all. Magic in all things. A certain part of him searching, always searching, for what it was that he might do.
A sense that a battle had been fought in the depths of his unconscious, even as he attempted to rest, and even after the true battle against Tiberius had been won. Something had been dissatisfied, or at least dutiful, or perhaps it was something else entirely that drove it. That which had won the battle against Tiberius in the first place – that which Oliver Patrick, and all he assumed himself to be had no control of.
A possessed man, possessed of a thing that seemed to have infinite interest. Easily distracted, and mightily powerful. It robbed him of his purpose when that fire ought to have kept him striding down the corridor in search of that which he’d set out to find. Instead, it had him standing there, with one window half-closed, staring up at the sky in a reverence. A half-moon, and a cloudless night. A little semi-circle of silver. Significance to it, some sort of hidden meaning. A riddle that could solve the next thousand years of the Stormfront if only he could understand it.
Then a lowered gaze, out towards the Black Mountains, a great looming shadow in the depths of the night. Silent, it was, whenever the gentle wind was now stirring. Oliver fancied he could hear those mountains growling. A strength of emotion in his chest – a part of him that seemed to understand something with a far greater significance than he ever could. The first step on a path that Oliver did not even see.
A decision hastily made, and this was where it brought him. That stirring sense. Something delighted in it, something seemed to point to the fact that finally, he was pointed in the right direction, that those short few weeks of emptiness and drifting in the lue of his victory over Tiberius were set towards something more profound.
And how could that not be the case? For even the Oliver that wondered why it was he was stood there, rooted still as he was, so interested in the horizon, did understand in the same way the position in which they now stood. Hod had attempted to grapple with it, so that Oliver did not have to. Or at least, whilst Oliver’s interest did not point him properly in that direction, in the fallout from the extensive fighting he had done, and the losses he had endured.
Solgrim, Ernest, and the entirety of the Stormfront, off the back of the short footsteps that they would take in marching towards their Kingdom’s Capital, was most certainly about to change. Whether they were to lose, it would change, and whether they were to win, it would most certainly change.
An entire country and its fate lay in the balance. An outstretched hand as Oliver pondered it, allowing a few flakes of snow to fall on him. Then a clenched fist, a tilt of the head, something desperately trying to understand, and wondering truly what it was – that country that he called the Stormfront. Those mountains that he called the Black Mountains. And even Ernest, the city that he stood in.
Were they the grey subjects of their own names? Were they just places on the map? Or were they simply the people that inhabited them? No logical definition that Oliver came up with seemed to satisfy it. It was that look in his eyes, distant from the realm of men, yet more involved in it than he could ever be. A child’s look, well and truly, but with a weight that no true child could ever hold. It was that look which seemed to understand, and get closer to the heart of it. They were not names, they were not places, not locations on the map. They were not even the bricks that built them, nor the ground that made them. The truth of them was in a feeling – a sense of stirring magic. The truth of them was in that which could animate Oliver Patrick when he thought upon them.
The magic of the Black mountains, and all that they seemed to offer. The invisible creatures that seemed to house themselves there, both in reality, and in fiction. The powerful monsters that he very much knew dwelled there, but also that unmistakable peace, that crushing sense of wisdom that he associated with it. Was that simply the product of the time that he had spent there with Dominus, or was it a veritable truth in and of itself?
If he were to seize a hand out and claim it, then he ought know that truth. And what would motivate his hand towards seizing it, if not for that sense which was beyond that which word could properly describe? The magic of the place, and all that existed in it beyond which the human mouth could properly describe. That, Oliver found he was willing to fight for. He imagined a Yarmdon horde in their tens and hundreds of thousands coming to claim it, and he found, quite easily, that he was willing to defend it until the very last breath.
Was that the Stormfront? The will to defend it from all other hands that would take it?
Or was the Stormfront in that sense of loss, when he imagined how it would have been if he were to lose such a battle? To lose the wisdom of that place? A spirit in it like that of Blackwell, and like that of Dominus and Tavar, all put together. Wise, brooding, grey mountains, full of life, and so much to offer. To lose that, Oliver could say with a certainty, the Stormfront would be so far degraded as to cease to be itself – simply to lose one range of mountains would make it so.